Raising Dragons with Florian Friedmann

Friedmann is an animator on the television show "Game of Thrones." He's been put in charge of animating the ferocious dragons we see running across the screen. Florian Friedmann has gotten to see the progression of the mythical beasts since they were "little." Now that they're all grown up, Friedmann goes into some of the processes of growing dragons.

With each new season, the rigs for the dragons get heavier. The little babies are growing up and not only getting bigger, but also bulkier. The little reptiles are developing thicker muscles, specifically on their chests. New pivot points need to be added around their chests for flying to help accommodate their newly increased sizes. Accompanying their increased sizes, their level of detail and amount of controllers increase as well. Each scale on the dragon's back has its own controller and even the faces have controllers to give off the appearance of having emotions.

Since the dragon rigs have to be redone with each season, the animators have to be constantly looking for references. Videos of bats are used to help nail down the motion of the dragons' wings while walking gorillas are referenced for the motions of the legs, though they still give the animators problems. To deal with the issue of the dragons walking, the team behind them chooses to cover them up with the dragons' large leathery wings. They're hardly seen anyway, so if it works then it works.

Animators aren't the only ones that get the responsibility honor to work on the dragons. Animators and the simulation crew split up different sections of the work. For example, the animation crew might build the rig and get all the basic motions down, but the simulation crew might refine it and add subtle folding in the skin of the wings. The work is broken up to create the most realistic product they can.

Lastly, Friedmann comments on his emotional attachment to the creatures he's been tasked to animate. He has seen the dragons "grow up" and says that he would be devastated if he didn't get to work on the dragons next season.

I think it's neat to get a bit of a peek on the inside of Game of Thrones, especially in the dragon/animating department. I love seeing examples of how animation can be integrated into live action filming

Do the animators also work with the textures? If so, then how are all the different textures mapped to the dragons' bodies and how are they given the appearance of realism despite being CG?

Animation is becoming much more realistic and considerably more relevant. In the past we saw comedy bits like "Who Framed Rodger Rabbit" that had both live action and animation, but now we have serious shows and films like "Game of Thrones" to really show how great animation has become.